Illegal loggers blamed for murder of Peru forest campaigner

Authorities confirm killing of Edwin Chota and three other men, with reports saying they were shot in front of villagers

Dan Collyns in Lima
theguardian.com, Monday 8 September 2014 23.01 EDT

Illegal loggers are being blamed for the murder of four Asheninka natives including a prominent anti-logging campaigner, Edwin Chota, near the Peruvian frontier with Brazil.

Authorities in Peru have confirmed that Chota, the leader of Alto Tamaya-Saweto, a community in Peru’s Amazon Ucayali region, fought for his people’s right to gain titles to their land and expel illegal loggers who raided their forests on the Brazilian border. He featured in reports by National Geographic and the New York Times that detailed how death threats were made against him and members of his community.

“This is a terribly sad outcome. And the saddest part is that it was a foreseen event,” said Julia Urrunaga, Peru director for the Environmental Investigation Agency, an international conservation group. “It was widely known that Edwin Chota and other leaders from the Alto Tamaya-Saweto community were asking for protection from the Peruvian authorities because they were receiving death treats from the illegal loggers operating in their area.”

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“Edwin Chota’s widow and other villagers travelled for six days by river to come here to report this crime,” Peru’s vice minister of intercultural affairs, Patricia Balbuena, told the Guardian. She had travelled to the regional capital, Pucallpa, to further investigate the case.

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A 2012 World Bank report estimated that as much as 80% of Peru’s logging exports are harvested illegally [PDF] and investigations have revealed that the wood is typically laundered using doctored papers to make it appear legal and ship it out of the country; while a 2012 report by the Environmental Investigation Agency indicated at least 40% of official cedar exports to the US included illegally logged timber.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/09/illegal-loggers-blamed-for-of-peru-forest-campaigner

Police meet widows of slain indigenous leaders
By FRANK BAJAK, Associated Press | September 9, 2014 | Updated: September 9, 2014 9:12pm

LIMA, Peru (AP) — Peruvian police investigators and a deputy minister met Tuesday with widows of four slain indigenous leaders who had resisted a steady onslaught by illegal loggers in their remote Amazon jungle homeland.

The Ashaninka community's slain leader, Edwin Chota, had for years led efforts to obtain titles to its traditional lands near Brazil's border. He constantly confronted the loggers who strip the region's river basins of prized hardwoods, especially mahogany and cedar.

Tribal authorities say they suspected illegal loggers in the killings, and described an intensified climate of fear.

Pervasive corruption lets the illegal loggers operate unhindered in the region, and environmentalists said they only hope the death of Chota and the three others will be a catalyst for reform.

"We'll see what we can do to change this horrible tragedy into hopefully a small victory for indigenous rights and environmental justice," said David Salisbury, a professor at the University of Richmond who was advising Chota on the title quest and had known him for a decade.

Peru's deputy minister of intercultural affairs, Patricia Balbuena, told The Associated Press from Pucallpa, the Ucayali state regional capital, after meeting with the widows that she was organizing helicopter transport to the region on Wednesday so police could investigate and retrieve the bodies.

More:
http://www.chron.com/news/world/article/Police-meet-widows-of-slain-indigenous-leaders-5744796.php